[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 200 KB, 640x480, kaiba_zarathustra.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR] No.19104174 [Reply] [Original]

What's the proper reading order for Nietzsche if I want to really understand what he's getting at? I'm especially interested in his views on religion but I want to become acquainted with the other aspects of his philosophy, namely his anti-foundationalism and perspectivism. Any advice on which of his books to start with? Any good secondary literature too?

>> No.19104261

Bump

>> No.19104305

>>19104174
Genealogy of moral
Ecce Homo
Essay about the human condition
Beyond good and evil

>> No.19104328

>>19104305
Thanks, what about the rest (Gay Science, Zarathustra, Wagner, Twilight of the Idols...)?

>> No.19104489

Bump.

>> No.19104551

>>19104174
I would suggest starting with Beyond Good and Evil. Plenty disagree with that, but it's where I started, and it's a short (albeit dense) book that doesn't beat around the bush and dives straight into the ontological and epistemological premises he's working with. From there, you would read Genealogy of Morality directly after. After that, you can go in two directions, backwards or forwards, though I would suggest going forwards first.

Some will suggest starting with Twilight first, because Nietzsche seemed to recommend doing so at the start of Ecce Homo, but in my opinion, that book is a bit too polemical and tends to paint a certain picture of Nietzsche as some raging Diogenes-style shitposter in the philosophical canon who has no substance to his work. It's a fun and short read, but not a great place to start. Others will suggest starting with Zarathustra, oddly, but I think that's one of the last books you should read, being that it's supposed to be a mythological / philosophical fiction text that covers his whole philosophy in an allegorical format.

Another approach might be to just get Walter Kaufmann's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist and The Portable Nietzsche. People criticize Kaufmann for taking too many liberties with the translation, and Kaufmann himself says that he sometimes does so in order to match Nietzsche's poetic style in English as closely as possible, but I've cross-checked his translations with others' in the past and never found anything that was so dramatically different that the meaning in the text was lost. Kaufmann is also extremely readable due to his approach. I would suggest going the Beyond Good and Evil route I proposed instead of this one, though in either case I do recommend Kaufmann's translations if you can get a hold of them.

>> No.19104594

>>19104551
Thank you for the detailed answer, do you have a particular reading order for the following or do you think they can be read in any order when one's got the basics down?
>Birth of tragedy
>Human all too human
>Antichrist
>Gay science

>> No.19104606

>>19104174
All you need his essay "Homer's Contest"

>> No.19104752

What did Nietzsche mean by life affirming and is it possible to affirm life while still believing in an afterlife?

>> No.19104768

What would Nietzsche say about me not wanting to do my math homework? Genuine question

>> No.19104776

>>19104752
Yes, as long as your afterlife is still life in the naturalistic sense (Nietzsche's life affirming "afterlife" is the eternal return, which is very similar but also very different to rebirth). That's partly why he referred to the Vedas and Laws of Manu as life affirming. That said, I think the most life affirming view of death to Nietzsche apart from the eternal return is probably the Hellenic or Sumerian type, where everyone turns to distraught shades in the underworld. Transmigration is one closer step toward viewing death as heaven.

>> No.19104820

>>19104776
An afterlife like the asphodel meadows is basically the same thing as oblivion.

>> No.19104828

>>19104594
If you decide to read Beyond and Genealogy first, then I'd recommend this reading order for what you posted:

>Twilight of the Idols
>The Antichrist
>The Gay Science
>The Birth of Tragedy
>Human, All Too Human
>Ecce Homo
>Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I wouldn't read The Antichrist before reading Twilight of the Idols, so that should be on the list too. Also, you can actually read The Birth of Tragedy at any point, not just where I placed it; it was Nietzsche's first book, and the only one where he talks at length about the myths of Dionysus, so it's pretty foundational in a sense, but he also criticized the book later on, saying that it was full of the errors of youth, or something to that effect (what he meant was that it was written before he found his "voice," as he was mostly paying his debt to Wagner with this book).

Human, All Too Human is a hard call for me, because I haven't actually read that one in full. I've only read maybe 15% of it. Some might say that you can skip Human altogether because it's the most "awkward" of his books. Either way, I'd read The Birth of Tragedy before that one.

I also added Ecce Homo and Thus Spoke Zarathustra at the end. Ecce Homo is his semi-autobiographical work and the last book he wrote. He gives a general survey of his previous works in that one. It's good to read it at the end rather than at the start because, and this is really Kaufmann's interpretation, the book is partially satirical, a pretty high-level book among his works that can be misunderstood if you're unfamiliar with him (not to say that he is lying in it, but he is being hyperbolic for effect). Zarathustra I place at the end because it's basically the end of his philosophy and companion / guide book for his works, something you can take with you anywhere and refer to at any time because it's all in verse.

>> No.19104835

>>19104828
Much appreciated, this seems like a solid plan.

>> No.19104860

The Gay Science, Walter Kaufmann translation if you're anglo

>> No.19104867

>>19104860
then BGE, TSZ, EH, etc

>> No.19105512

>>19104768
err I think he would be proud.
Read On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense
https://www.kth.se/social/files/5804ca7ff276547f5c83a592/On%20truth%20and%20lie%20in%20an%20extra-moral%20sense.pdf

>> No.19105598

>>19105512
>>19104768
based. Math is life-denying and fit for slavish bugs who fulfilling their autistic duty to serve someone else

>> No.19105611

>>19104768
To add a general answer; math is like the most apollonian pursuit imaginable, which Nietzsche was opposed to, as he argued for a much more dionysian approach to life

>> No.19105625

nobody should read nietzsche until i finally get around to writing my intro to him

>> No.19105650

>>19105611
Nietzsche was also notoriously bad at geometry

>> No.19105736
File: 1.56 MB, 2342x6196, 1629641119909.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>19104174
Here you go, found this in a chart thread lit fren

>> No.19105970
File: 283 KB, 1300x717, N-Twilight-Kaufmann.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>19104752
By life affirmation, he meant embracing and celebrating all aspects of life, including pain and the most terrible aspects of it. The "orgiastic" element of the Dionysian mysteries and tragedies that Nietzsche saw. And yes, it's possible, and it seems he saw the Greeks as having achieved that; pic related.

>> No.19106062

>>19105970
Just going to add this insightful video essay that analyses Berserk as a tragedy to Nietzsche life-affirming philosophy. An hour well spent
https://youtu.be/zxTwYdYzw8c